


Eyes Wide Open

by wormwood700



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormwood700/pseuds/wormwood700
Summary: Faramir, the slow process of healing and returning to the land of the living.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Eyes Wide Open

**Eyes Wide Open**

Faramir woke and found he was unsure whether he’d be able to manage the sequence of movements to take him out of bed and across the short section of floor to his shoes. With dull dismay he realized he was back – in the world of grey hues and slow thoughts.

He managed to get up and get dressed, but couldn’t settle down to anything. Instead he drifted from room to room,haunting his own quarters.

“You’re not unique, you know,” Aragorn said one evening when he joined Faramr at the window he was staring out of. Faramir felt a flicker of anger. He didn’t in any way consider himself unique inside his grey cocoon. But he also sensed the Aragorn’s despair at once more seeing the forwards crawl of healing come to a halt and retreat.

“Look,” said Aragorn and pointed towards the flickering outlines of the communal cooking fires in the distance. ”Everybody has lost someone down there. Go and join them, talk to them. They are your people.”

Faramir took a step back, knocked out of his inertia by the sorrow in Aragorn’s voice.He sensed the deep and very human love for himself from the man in front of him.

“Yes” - was all he managed to say. He pulled his cloak around him and left the room.

The smells from the cooking fires stopped him in his tracks when he got outside. He resumed walking and walked close enough to hear the crackle of flames and the murmur of voices. Then he turned and walked back.

But the next morning he found he could focus on the image of a mottled sheet of flame to get him out of bed a little quicker than he’d done recently. At early dusk he ventured out again and made himself walk closer. He stopped just inside the gate in the seventh circle and watched comings and goings of adults and children. His people...

He shouldn’t be standing in the shadows observing them like this, but just now he could do no other. He felt appalled by the extent of his brokenness. Appalled at the thin and gaunt man who stood hiding in the shadows, wary of mingling with the ones he once upon a time had offered such futile protection.

He’d obeyed a man he knew full well had lost his reason. He’d been so blinkered by his grief, and so intent on seeking death that he’d sacrificed his men; only to find that _he_ was the only survivor. And now he couldn’t forgive himself that slaughter, as he couldn’t forgive himself for being - here. Boromir had never risked the lives of his men needlessly. Boromir who’d wanted him to live.

_Some fucking life..._

Faramir shook his head hard, aware he was sliding back into the old treadmill of guilt and despair. He was here.And the only way he could atone for the terrible consequences of his grief was to be – here.Here for the people who cooked food and warmed themselves on the fires only meters away from him. And it had to start now, with him as he was - now. Broken, thin, barely holding together.

Faramir balled his fists and walked slowly out of the shadows and into the glow of the fires. He had his hood up so no-one took any notice at first. He lowered himself onto the edge of one of the logs that served as seating and let his hood fall.

Faramir looked down and sensed the gathering hush as more and more heads turned towards him. He forced himself to look up and meet their eyes. Most of the faces expressed shock and uncertainty.

A woman walked towards him with a piece of bread and a cup of water.

“Eat,” she said, “you look like you need it.”

Then they all came. Shook his hand, squeezed his shoulder. Some even kissed his hair. Little by little the commotion died down and they let him be. But he still felt held and protected by their kindness and their appreciation of a shared hurt, a shared brokenness. Something frozen and tightly wound snapped inside Faramir. He pulled back into his hood to hide his tears.

The woman who first had spoken to him leant across and covered his hand with hers.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For coming here. For going on living.”

“It’s hard,” he whispered back, “so hard. I don’t even quite understand the force of my grief. It is as if something in me left and went in the boat with him that day - down the river and out. Something that now sits beside him under the stars, far out on a strange ocean and tries to wake him up.”

The woman was quiet for a while.

“Think about it this way,” she said, “that something of you, somewhere, sits by him under the stars and keeps _vigil_ , and not engaged in futile attempts at resurrection. That something of you, something infinitely tranquil and serene, is still next to him and always will be. That means the rest of you can step into the life that awaits you, because you know he’s in good hands.”

“Yes,” Faramir said, yes...”

He looked at her more closely. She had black hair and wide cheekbones and very dark eyes. He thought saw slivers of flame reflected in them, from a fire he couldn’t see.

“Thank you,” he whispered, “for finding the right words.”

“I think that’s what I came here for, Faramir of Gondor. You are a good man. You couldn’t bear the thought of your brother’s isolation in death, out on that black sea under those icy stars. The stars are beautiful, but we’re nothing to them.”

Faramir watched her as she disappeared in the shadows. He shut his eyes and let a part of him settle next to Boromir under another sky, fall into wakeful sleep and drift away. He opened his eyes again, looked at the people around him, _his_ people, and felt their love.

He was ready. To leave his grey room, meet the pain head on and to struggle past it. Eyes wide open.


End file.
